Nate Heeren - Church Visit #2

Church name: The Greek Orthodox Church of St. Demetrios

Church address: 893 N Church Rd, Elmhurst, IL 60126

Date attended: 10/25/15

Church category: Different ethnic or racial demographic

Describe the worship service you attended. How was it similar to or different from your regular context?

I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect as I drove down to the first Greek Orthodox Church I had ever visited in my life, but it ended up being far more than the simple evening service. It wasn’t just Vespers, but Great Vespers, and it wasn’t just Great Vespers, but Great Vespers of the Feast Day of St. Demetrios. That is correct: By happenstance, I went to the Church of St. Demetrios on the Feast Day of their patron saint.

The sanctuary was packed, with the members of the congregation being mostly elderly and having what I thought to be a “European look” about them. But as I would soon discover, what was most different was that almost everything was spoken in Greek, restricting my understanding rather severely. But I can say this much: It was extremely ritualistic. The clergy were all dressed in robes and did a great deal of liturgical chanting, to which the congregation joined in rarely. To be very brief (the service lasted 2 & ½ hours), there was an incense procession, a recitation of the Lord’s Prayer in Greek and English, a revering of St. Demetrios’ icon, and a sermon that (thankfully) switched to English!

What did you find most interesting or appealing about the worship service?

More than a few years ago I visited a Catholic church for a weekday mass along with a friend, and his comments after the service struck me: He said that the style of the place, the low lighting, the smell of the incense, and certain other factors had all contributed to a sublime feeling of reverence for the divine, something that (particularly non-liturgical) Protestant churches are prone to miss with their often modern, sterile buildings and more casual approach. The service at St. Demetrios exuded much of the same feeling as that mass. Its architectural style was ornate and often felt medieval, the lighting was natural and dim (for the first half or so), and the chant-singing often constant. When the incense procession began and the clergyman began ringing the incense flail-bell, which I think may have been filled with myrrh (strongly associated with St. Demetrios, apparently), its smell permeated the room longer after he had ceased. There was something very reverent and personal about it, in its own way.

What did you find most disorienting or challenging about the worship service?

The language barrier, was, of course, by far the most disorienting part, and its implications are so obvious that I don’t feel the need to elaborate on that front. While I was appreciative of the English component of the sermon, to be brutally honestly it sounded like a great deal of superstitious nonsense to me. There is undoubtedly theological nuance I do not appreciate in their honoring of a saint and the reverence of relics, but it nevertheless strikes me as misguided and potentially idolatrous. The preacher spoke about the many alleged miracles of St. Demetrios, claiming that he was still performing them long after his martyrdom. The story that stood out to me the most asserted that angels had come to his burial place to bring him to heaven, but he refused on account of his work being unfinished here. I immediately wondered about the theological justification for this story. After all, angels presumably act upon the orders of God in tasks such as this, so was St. Demetrios then refusing God’s will?

What aspects of Scripture or theology did the worship service illuminate for you that you had not perceived as clearly in your regular context?

As I sat in the service, with its community closely tied by their ethnic identity, I wondered about this question: Is this model desirable and sustainable? I never think about this question in my regular church context, and now I wonder if mine is also ethnically homogeneous in a de facto sense, but I digress. On the one hand, this ethnic focus binds the community together, fostering greater depth of unity. Yet, particularly in the case of a Greek Orthodox church where Greek is predominantly spoken, it is utterly inaccessible to outsiders. This raises the question of whether each and every church should try to be prepared for every type of newcomer, or if it is sufficient to rely on a network of churches, with each church covering a different demographic. Is this “separate but unified” approach (more like the salad than the melting pot) something we ought to be aiming for as the Church? I have more questions than answers, but I’m glad that my experience at St. Demetrios helped me to realize these issues more clearly.